Sloppy Sixers gift Pistons first win

PHILADELPHIA — Need a synopsis of the 76ers’ game? For brevity’s sake, here you go: A winless team with the league’s worst rebounding differential came to Wells Fargo Center and out-rebounded and out-scored the Sixers handily.

The Sixers didn’t hand-pick this one as a let-down game. It found them.

Doug Collins’ crew assembled its poorest showing of the season in a 94-76 loss Wednesday night to the Detroit Pistons, who ended a franchise-worst season-opening losing streak at eight games … and at the Sixers’ expense.

To follow up a three-win road trip, the Sixers have lost the first two in a five-game homestand.

This one had ugly written all over it — a poorly attended midweek game against one of the league’s worst teams. A cascade of boos flowing from the rafters greeted the Sixers more than three minutes remaining in the second quarter, and followed them into the locker room.

They didn’t hustle. They didn’t defend. They didn’t score. They didn’t rebound. And the list goes on.

Those are can’t-miss components to a swift start, something the Sixers (4-4) have lacked in recent efforts. A key for the Sixers, in avoiding a slip-up against the Pistons (1-8), would be reducing their opening-minutes melancholy, Collins said in pregame.

It didn’t work out that way for the Sixers, who carried Collins’ gameplan through eight minutes and no further.

The only good news came from the Sixers’ trainer’s room, with Dorell Wright not having to miss more than a few minutes of action due to a chin laceration. The forward got eight stitches and returned to the floor.

The Pistons – led by Greg Monroe’s 19-point, 18-rebound, six-assist effort — beat the Sixers in the rebound department, 57-38.

Their six-point lead after one quarter swelled to as many as 18, at 52-34, heading into halftime. Detroit used a 14-4 run midway through the second, sustained by three buckets apiece from Kyle Singler and Jason Maxiell. More critically for the Sixers, they permitted eight of those 14 points off offensive rebounds for Detroit.

While the Sixers were struggling to hit shots, the Pistons couldn’t find a way to miss.

Detroit fired at a 51-percent clip in the opening 24 minutes, coupling 19-for-37 shooting with a superb effort on the glass. The Pistons, who owned an NBA-worst minus-7.5 rebound differential at tip, outrebounded the Sixers, 33-15, at the break.

Those numbers, more than anything, were cause for those boos emanating throughout the arena.

It got uglier before it got better for the Sixers.

Any attempt at a run in the third quarter was stymied by the Sixers’ inability to control rebounds. That carried into the fourth quarter, too, with Lavoy Allen seemingly unaware of what to do after coming away with an offensive board. Rather than put it on the floor and go back up for an easy bucket, he dribbled out of the lane and passed to Nick Young, for a failed lay-up attempt.

There was a stretch in the fourth quarter, when the Sixers synced up a 1-for-12 shooting display with the Pistons’ ballooning of their lead to its largest, at 76-55.

With nothing more to lose, since the game hadn’t been in question since the first quarter, the Sixers finally inserted rookie forward Arnett Moultrie with 6:35 remaining. Their interior play needing a jolt, the Sixers needed to see if they could count on the kid.

Allen gave them 14 points and six rebounds in a reserve capacity, knocking down a trio of 16-footers while spelling starting center Kwame Brown. The veteran journeyman managed 13 minutes in only his second appearance of the season.